This invention relates generally to apparatus and methods for producing tufted goods such as carpet and the like, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for producing tufted goods embodying a pattern or design.
The realization of practical apparatus and methods capable of producing patterned tufted goods using multicolored or multitextured yarns represents, perhaps, the single greatest unsatisfied need of the tufting industry. No other need has received more time or attention, and despite the numerous proposals which have been advanced for tufting styling techniques that are capable of competing with the styling ability of a loom, none has proved to be satisfactory or commercially practical. At present, the only sources of such patterned goods are woven goods produced by a loom, or those produced using various tinting or dyeing techniques.
In order to produce tufted goods embodying patterns or designs using yarns of different colors or different textures, it is necessary to be able to select from the plurality of different yarns the particular yarn or yarns that are to be implanted in a backing for each tuft. In a conventional multineedle broadloom tufting machine, a large number, 1200, for example, of needles are connected to a reciprocating needle bar, and each needle is threaded with yarn supplied from a corresponding spool located in a yarn creel. To produce a multicolored or multitextured pattern with such machines requires the ability to change the yarn supplied to each needle for each needle stroke. This is not possible in a conventional tufting machine. Although other types of tufting machines have been proposed wherein the tufting needles are threaded each stroke with a precut length of yarn that may be selected from a plurality of different yarns, such machines are complex and have proved to be impractical. Other proposals have included modifying conventional machines to provide tandem groups of needles, each needle of a group being supplied with one of the different yarns, and either a needle selection mechanism for selecting the particular needle of a group that is actuated during each stroke, or a yarn feed mechanism for controlling the amount of yarn supplied to each needle so as to produce either a low pile for non-selected yarns that is obscured by a higher pile of the selected yarns, or for causing the non-selected yarns that are implanted to be pulled from the backing by their corresponding needles during the next needle stroke. These approaches also have proved to be complex and impractical or otherwise unsatisfactory.
It is desirable to provide apparatus and methods for providing patterned tufted goods from yarns of different colors or textures that avoid the foregoing disadvantages, and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.